The latest RaDaR amendment has now been approved by Ethics. The main changes concern clarification that RaDaR consent covers Patient View Sign-up, subject to local availability, and that patients consent to being contacted directly by a member of the central RaDaR team and/or their Rare Disease Group Lead regarding information events or further research studies.

The amendment also allows for data linkage to other registries, including the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and Office for National Statistics (ONS) databases. This will enable a far more comprehensive RaDaR data-set than is currently available with manual data entry. It will also allow for longitudinal follow-up of patients who have previously consented to condition-specific research studies, or who do so in the future.

Copies of the new documents have been sent to all current sites and are also available from the Criteria and Consent page.

Following a review of our revised consent documents by NHS Digital, we have just submitted the latest RaDaR amendment to the South West – Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee.

The main changes concern clarification that RaDaR consent covers Patient View Sign-up, subject to local availability, and that patients consent to being contacted directly by a member of the central RaDaR team and/or their Rare Disease Group Lead regarding information events or further research studies.

The amendment will also allow for data linkage to other registries, including the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and Office for National Statistics (ONS) databases. This will allow for a far more comprehensive RaDaR data-set than is currently available with manual data entry. It will also allow for longitudinal follow-up of patients who have previously consented to condition-specific research studies, or who do so in the future.

No action is required on behalf of the sites at present. We will everyone informed as to the progress of this amendment and let you know when it is approved.

Research staff – please add your patients to Patient View once they have consented to RaDaR. This allows for an automatic transfer of blood and urine results from your renal IT system, to Patient View and on into RaDaR.

Patients – if your hospital have signed up to Patient View, you should receive your login details shortly after consenting to RaDaR.

The RaDaR Operational Management Board and Rare Disease Group Leads have agreed to apply for an Ethics amendment to clarify the fact that RaDaR consent covers Patient View sign-up, subject to availability at individual renal units.

The proposed amendment will also allow for data linkage to other registries, including the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and Office for National Statistics (ONS) databases. This will allow for a far more comprehensive RaDaR data-set than is currently available with manual data entry. It will also allow for longitudinal follow-up of patients who have previously consented to condition-specific research studies, or who do so in the future.

In addition, it is proposed to ask patients to consent to being contacted directly by a member of the central RaDaR team, regarding information events or further research studies. Such communication would always be approved by the patient’s Consultant before being sent out and will largely be circulated via Patient View.

Approval will be sought from NHS Digital’s data Access Request Service (DARS).

It is aimed to submit the Ethics amendment by the of September. Please continue to recruit patients to RaDaR in the meantime, using the current consent documents.

Further details will follow in the coming weeks but we would welcome suggestions over the proposed amendment to Melanie.Dillon@RenalRegistry.nhs.uk.